


Slipping through My Fingers

by easternCriminal



Series: Heart and Soul [5]
Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Gen, Light Romance, daemon AU, mostly supposed to be like, pre romance/friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 18:41:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17289344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/easternCriminal/pseuds/easternCriminal
Summary: Gwen loses her best friend. In a daemon au. And that somehow makes it worse.pre movie





	Slipping through My Fingers

Gwen stares down the enemy from the safety of her mask, perched up on the wall. It’s a hulking lizardman that’s been rampaging through the labs. She’s not sure what these labs were for, and she knows in the back of her head that she’ll have to look into later because what is still standing after the lizardman has demolished half of it doesn’t look good, but right now she has to focus on not letting this thing make its way out ot the public. 

“I don’t know if it’s actually human.” A small albino bat flitted up to Gwen, landing in her hair. “It hasn’t talked yet and it doesn’t look like it has a daemon.” 

“Thanks Bes.” Gwen reached up and patted his head before wall crawling closer to the lizard thing. These days lizards always made her think of Peter, ever since Starestros had settled. She could still remember how… hurt Peter had been when he found out the Beschiki had settled, leaving him to be more or less the only kid in their grade with an unsettled daemon. She couldn’t exactly explain to him that Bes had only finally settled when she had saved her father from a gunshot wound, the adrenaline and stress causing the two of them to mature that extra bit. Starestros didn’t seem to mind, flitting around in a bat form to play with Bes. She was relieved when Star had finally settled, taking on the form of a green lizard. Gwen thought it was perfect for a nerd like Peter.

At least when she was out saving the town she didn’t need to worry about Peter. He was safe at his home, probably working on his chemistry homework, wondering where she was and possibly still angry about her adamant decision to leave him behind when it came to hero work. That was okay, if he needed to be mad at her to keep him safe, she’d do that. Maybe she’d write him a song to apologize or something. Yeah… next time she saw him, she’d do that.

“This guys’ bones are brittle.” Bes said after doing another quick surveillance. “I know it sounds morbid but, we might have to break his legs or something.” Gwen bit her lip nervously under her mask. 

“Let me see if I can take him down normally first.” She launched herself across the room, pushing off of the wall and bringing her legs up as she came up on the thing, kicking him square in the chest. Almost instantly this sense of…  _ wrong _ washes over her, invading all of her senses and she springs back from the beast, reeling and hurt. 

“W-what was  _ that?!”  _ Beschiki pants, reeling as much as her. “W-what out!” The lizard thing gives a loud roar and knocks her to the wall with his hand. And again, as soon as he touches her she hurts all over, feel so  _ invaded _ , that it’s all she can do to not lose consciously as she makes contact with the concrete below. She’s shaking, and spluttering, and somewhere she’s aware of a whining sound that Bes is making.

“I-Is he poisonous? Somehow? Or…” Gwen lifted her arms up, looking at them, but there wasn’t any residue as far as she could tell on them. Maybe it was a gas he emitted or something like that? Before she can voice her theory to Bes the lizard man lets out another cry (and somehow it sounds sad and crazed at the same time) and she looks up to see him lunging at Bes, who is flitting around his head. “Don’t you dare touch him!” 

She leaps up and kicks him in the chest again, this time  _ hard _ , full of anger, and though the feeling comes over her again she doesn’t falter and tries to fight through it. Something beneath the sole of her foot  _ gives,  _ it  _ cracks _ with an ungodly sound that fills the entire room. She lands carefully on her feet as the creature reals back, screeching and giving off… giving off… Her breath catches in her throat. The creature is giving off Dust. 

The more Dust that appears in the air, that comes off the creature, the smaller it gets. She’s never seen this much Dust before, curling in the air like miniature galaxies full of thousands and millions of stars. When the creature falls to the ground, it is a man. Concern fills her, because she has a code here not to kill, and she rushes forward to look at who it is. 

“Gwen?” She collapses as her name is called. She knows that voice. She’d know it anywhere. 

“P-Peter? Peter, why are you here?” She cradles his head in her arms and this feeling.... This feeling that washes over her, of comfort and love and bone deep sorrow… he’s still giving off dust and his skin still has a lizard like scaly texture and… “Starestros?” She whispers, and when Peter/Starestros looks at her, she knows she’s right.

“I-I’m sorry.” He mutters, and it comes out wheezingly. His chest it moving, but only shallowly, and suddenly all she can hear is that snapping sound from earlier. “We just… we wanted to help you.” 

“No!” She shouts it, tears spilling over her eyes as she viciously shoves up her mask, hands hovering over their chest. “We can - we can fix this. I can fix this.” And Peter/Starestros shakes their head. 

“It’s okay Gwen.”

“No- no it’s not-”

“It’s okay.” And they raise a hand up to her face, and she can feel their love for her resonate through her entire being. A gasp slips through her mouth, it’s almost too much for her to bear, having such intimate contact with Peter’s soul. And then it just stops, leaving only cold emptiness left in her. The last of the Dust comes off Peter, and all remains of Starestros on his corpse is gone. He’s gone. And she’s the reason why.

**Author's Note:**

> Gwen - Beschiki - albino bat  
> Peter Parker (Gwenverse) - Starestros - green lizard
> 
> I hope you liked it! Have a great day!


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